


Unfinished Garlands

by CravenWyvern



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: But without the hurt or comfort if that makes any sense, Flower Crowns, Flowers, Hurt/Comfort, Odd style of writing this time, POV Second Person, Relationship is complicated as hell, Self-Hatred, in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 16:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16664635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: It could be worse.





	1. Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Idk, rambling thoughts I guess

“Is this...is this alright?”

A moment of silence, thought, hesitancy, and hot breath against a warm throat, the light pressure of two bodies pressed together, eyes half closed and waiting, waiting, shivering, in the dark and blue of full moon.

The half finished machine was up, tall, unfinished, half finished, unfinished, and the not tall man had his back to it, pressed up against chipped marble and wood and stone, wires and cogs, unfinished.

The not short man's hands were in clothing, bunched in a red vest as they shook, and he shook, afraid, terrified even, and yet all too sober and still, all too frozen and empty, void of everything but the presence of warmth and the light brushes of a swallowing throat against his lips, not quite close enough and all too far away, too far away. Claws stayed well away from him, shoulders set and arms held away, unsure, yet he could hear the clicking of bone talons, nervous, unsure.

“I...I don't know.” There was something in the not tall man's voice, hard and yet crumbled, refined and yet completely raw, that shivered up his spine and his grip tightened, a moment where something fought and tore in his chest, in his throat, unsaid words that died in his mouth, film over his tongue.

The soft hum of firelight insects, shining stars in a blue tinged world, a breeze to hush over blue tinted grass and pines, needles and pinecones and the undergrowth, the hill of some burrow and holes of vermin housing, the beauty of a blue mooned world and its wide lands, for the eyes of night given freely, yet all the not short man could find himself wanting to look at was someone who saw nothing, nothing at all in him but bitter twisted decay.

Nothing but rot, and nothing more than that.

His hands eased their grip, joints aching from having grasped on so hard, so desperate, so pitifully desperate, and he could feel his heart fall, his shoulders loosen, the shrink of himself into a waxen glob of infested decay and muck.

This couldn't stop him from shifting, letting his forehead fall to rest in the space between neck and shoulder, to feel warmth and living skin against him even as his eyes closed, and he breathed deep, even, before a hidden shudder made him hunch more, to curl up into something smaller, forgettable, nothing.

To crawl into a nonsensical hole to die alone in.

A moment more, turmoil sloshing and deepening with an acid burn that ate away at his insides, to burn and freeze hatred into himself forever more, and he could feel the not tall man take a short, stuttered breath, claws clicking, clicking, clashing together in nervous, anxious energy.

Then he tried to remove himself, to pull away and thus, in the end, be away. It was the right thing to do, and it was the only thing he could ever, in the end, make himself do.

Talons were suddenly upon him, grabbing at his shoulders, sharp and ragged and so very sudden, and he froze, heart in his throat and everything in him shuddering, quaking, ready to fall and collapse and become ruin.

As if he wasn't some measly old ruin already, decrepit enough, abandoned enough.

“W-wait, wait, just a moment.” A hiss, tense intake of air between tightly clenched teeth, the upturn of the face he had pressed himself against, brushing of scraggy shadow of the chin and greasy hair. The strain of the body he was looming against, the stiff energy, waiting and bundled up and tense, so very tense and ready to spring at a moments notice, was a shivering threat, one that made itself clear and strong in his mind. “Just, just wait. Don't move.”

Talons held him there, close, gripped into his suit and keeping his forehead against breathing flesh, the puff of the not tall man's breath against his ear and brushing his thinning, ragged hair, a soft intake of breath from deep lungs that made him stutter and slowly fall into pace with.

Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Slow, heavy, deep, and the flood of oxygen was tiring and burning in his chest, every breathe making him feel slower, lesser, too much.

But having another chest do the same, breath with him and sigh with him, quiet like and solemn, calm, it was enough to keep him from collapsing into a frothing mess of fungal rotted suds, cracked beads to cascade into dry nothings, each breath flowing with too much air and yet not even an ounce of enough.

It was warm, here, right here in this pinprick of light, of dark, of cold and hot and white and black, all and none, and a part of him shuddered and withered and cried out in utter silent terror. 

Terror of the unknown, of the nothingness and the beginning and the ending, of everything in between. He was so starkly afraid, of this warm lumpy organic thing that let him grab onto it and hold on, hold on even as his grip slipped and fell and everything drifted in sand grains from his own clawed up hands.

The breeze brushed over them, through them, and he shivered from the cold, the tug of his suit in a frost front, but the man under his smothering approach was different, was keeping him still, a blanket and guard against the world of now.

It would never be like this again, he thought suddenly, tearfully. He'd never be this big, this tall, this encompassing, ever again.

And it left him with a deep set feeling, something dull and soft and whispering, waiting, ever patient. Dark, too, so very dark and droll and dreary, and he shuddered a rasping breath, breaking their pattern a moment as the strength leaked from his limbs. The not tall man did not have to keep him up, the portals thick doorway keeping even his collapsed, disease ridden form up, but the sigh from the mans throat was sharp and arrow thin, tugged back and released to strike into his vulnerable chest.

It made the crash of hatred stronger, crueler, and he shuddered, wanting with everything that lied in him to peel away and stumble, lost, into another fantasyland, wasted dreamland as it was now.

“Don't move…” Whispered, as if knowing his roiling intentions, and after a moment another shocking surprise; talons made their way to the back of his head, to cradle blackened bone into his thinning, brittle hair, to brushing tingling paths of touch along his skull. They kept his face close, the air they breathed not mingling but close, touching in brief ceremony, and the not tall man sighed into his ear, laid his own head onto his shoulder with a tired exhale of air.

“Don't move.” Repeated, quietly, feeling the body he was pressed against breath in and out, in, out, slow and calming and so very steady, so very solid and constant and real.

Of all things, to be real. From this place, this wonderland, all make believe, the only one truly, fully real, was the not tall man that was holding onto his playing pretend form.

It wasn't as physical back then, with illusions and shadow forms, but his rotted exterior was one and the same with those shades; hollow, empty, and just imaginary friends in essence. He already knew he wasn't real, hasn't been in a long, long time, but this stubborn presence of actual, breathing real…

It made the slosh of burning black hatred in him quiver, sink and acid burn into his insides, eat holes through his flesh. 

Feeling the man breath, inadvertently slowing his own intake to match, to keep a slow, even pattern, he realized that, even with the cold trying to settle over him, the not tall mans presence was a warming pinpoint, a mass heavy star.

Even with his own shaking, boiling self hatred, there was a slow smoothing over, constant touch keeping him anchored and breathing, still. 

The weight of the not tall man's head on his bony shoulder, the touch of greasy hair, speckled grey, and hardened bone talons firm on his skin and bones form, it was so very real, so much.

His voice was thick in his throat, hardly a whisper as he squeezed his eyes shut, hands untense and just lightly gripping into red cloth, the vest rough and worn hewn but so very much there, so very much a thing of reality not of this horrid dream land.

“I won't.”

And, as long as the full moon held and those talons kept him still, kept him up, let him lean on and still held so very solid, so very real, he wouldn't.


	2. Dandelions

You had never realized just how tired you had gotten. 

Your hands shake, now, and sometimes it is still a surprise to see them, skin wrinkled and blotted and brittle, old scars twisted with age now. That was why you had the gloves, kept them on as long as possible; you could hardly stand the sight yourself, and knowing the others could see such things sent your stomach into twists and turns.

An illness plagues you, now, or had it clung to you since Before, back in another place, another time? You are not sure, not with the mix of some odd memories that rose like cloying sud bubbles, swirled with frothy oil that shimmered as your own mind remembered some of the worst moments of your life.

And then back they would descend, having almost blown, swelling in a tense roil that made your chest ache fit to bursting, but left you with the impression, the footprint of a swollen fever that, in the end, amounted to nothing.

It was a heavy thing, a broken, cracked heart, and your rotting mind did little to aid you anymore. The black oil in your veins, the exotic spice an aura over your skin, diluted into your very blood, was the nurturing fluid to the parasites nestled in your flesh, coiled about your lungs and nuzzling you shrunken black heart as they waited to be born. 

You raise shaking hands to your face, worn eyes squinting down to used leather gloves, your heart beating a sound loud and heavy, wrong as the blood in your veins. A twist of your gut, nausea and itchiness of your wrists, a cloying feeling in your head and the slow, dulled ache of your very dead heart, in a hollow, barren chest.

You rot, no matter what you end up doing with yourself, and parts of you crumble and flake into dust that not even the merry tardigrades would touch. You do not fault them for this, as you wouldn't feast on your own flesh even if put to death; the plague will twist your corpse, and even the most iron of bellies would find it hard to look upon.

And you should know this, as your own skull has looked up into your eyes far too many times to count.

You envy the emptiness, there, but know that there is no such escape. They mock you with the carrot on a string, the faint visage of freedom, but everything you do is all for naught. 

There is no way out, and for some reason this knowledge, of which you have already known for a long while now, sends that cold depth back into you, of nothing and forever and never, an eternal infinite suffering.

It just makes you so, so very tired.

And then something lights upon your head, a circlet of soft that dips under its own weight, almost covering your eyes before you carefully nudge it back up.

“You're getting mopy again.”

You look up, apathetic, already knowing who you'll see, already knowing you'd much rather be somewhere else.

Wilson gives you a look, unreadable, before turning his attention back to the other garland in his hands, blackened talons twining stems and leaves, heavy blooms full of colors. There is a silence, for a moment, tongue caught in your throat, brushing your gloved fingers through the petals set atop your head, still with a slight tremor that you grit your teeth at and hope is hidden well.

And then Wilson breaks it, again, still not looking to you.

“It's a nice day, isn't it?”

You want to be somewhere else.

“Is it? I haven't noticed.”

You mentally wince at the scrape of sarcasm in your voice, the bitterness, but it was already out and in the air and there was nothing you could do with it. Just like always, as usual, and that nausea in your gut twists and turns, burning hot and disgusting. You hadn't meant to come off as rude or mean, impolite, but that was all you were now, wasn't it?

A hand on your shoulder shocks you out of your thoughts, enough to almost make your trembling body jump, but you don't have nearly enough energy for that and instead just twitch, a walled off snarl settling on your face as you glare at the other man.

For his part, Wilson doesn't at all seem bothered. Instead, you have to break eye contact first because sometimes the man just had _too much_ in that gaze for you to withstand, too much that you don't want to see, not anymore.

Time on the Throne has shown you that you do not deserve such things. Your actions have always spoken louder than your words.

“Yes, it is.” 

Wilson speaks bluntly, quiet, and you look away, to the autumn leaf covered ground, ignoring his hand on your shoulder, ignoring the pit in your gut and the itchy feeling to just shrug off his grip. In some horrid way, you were still letting yourself have this, and it was a selfish thing. Both you and him know this, and yet neither of you have put a stop to it as of yet.

Perhaps you should get to it?

“Look up into the sky at some point, maybe you'll feel a little better afterwards.” Not a question, just a suggestion, and Wilson must know you all too well.

...You put it off for another day. Now was not the time to rip open old wounds.

“...Here, help me out.”

He's handing something to you now, firmly and without any hesitation, and you find a bundle of flowers dropped into your trembling hands, all different sorts of colors and sizes and shapes.

Something shivers, twitches, and a lone butterfly pulls itself away from the pile, shaking crumbled blossom wings and wiggling green stalk antenna, crawling over your gloved fingers.

Before a few flaps of its wings takes it away, off across the meadow, and you watch it blankly for a moment, feeling more empty than ever.

“Should have caught that.” Wilson speaks up beside you, and you were so caught up in thoughts that you hadn't even noticed that he's sat himself down, legs crossed underneath him and gaze looking out elsewhere. “The gardens will be needing more flowers soon.”

You almost bite back something back - a “and whose fault was that?” - but you choke it down and away, stay silent as the rot in you twists and turns, burns. Seeing such flight has made the disease in you curl tighter, stronger.

As if it would ever be as easy as that. Freedom has cost you all too much.

“I'm thinking the children would appreciate a garland or two.” Wilson doesn't look at you, occupied with his own pile of flowers, already twisting and tying and cradling them together. “The others as well, now that I think about it.”

You think of the makeshift crown on your own head, entertain the thought of brushing it off, standing up and walking away, but…

You are much too tired for that.

And, all things considered, your thoughts are certainly much more clearer. The pains stay, but now it is nothing more than faint illness.

Chronic, but as if you need to be so obsessive. There are other things to turn your mind towards, after all.

“Fine.” You don't have much besides bitterness in your throat, but nonetheless your old hands get to work, shaky movements but gentle either way, cupping flower heads and petals as to not damage or destroy them.

You've done that enough in your lifetime, even as a child. Plucking the petals and tearing it all open with young hands, splitting the stalks in half, making an ugly mess out of, what, beautiful things?

Was it plain curiousity, or just a desire to unmake and ruin?

It's been far too long since you've been a child, though now you don't aquait the word childish to youth. To be called such by someone younger than yourself puts a certain perspective on things. 

Wilson works beside you, silent besides his quiet, near whispered mutterings, habits taken from the past, and you look on him for a long moment, empty thoughts in mind.

And then you sigh, turn back to the flowers given to you, slowly bringing the shapes into being, circlets of heavy blossoms, colorful and, you suppose, beautiful in their own way.

You are far too tired for all this, but there are worse things to be.

Some of them sit beside you, wrapped up in layers and smothered down, and perhaps, in some ways, it hurts to know you've caused them. Again, your actions speak for you much more than your words.

Yet, for reasons you can't even begin to understand, you find yourself sitting next to someone you've wronged, as companionable as you supposed the two of you could ever be. The logic of it is missing, somewhere, and you wonder if Wilson knows this.

If he does, you would have thought he'd have left by now.

Then again, he's done that before, many times. It was the coming back that you could hardly wrap your mind around.

But, ah, you supposed it didn't quite matter, now did it? Those were most certainly not your actions, nor decisions. If you were him, you already knew what you'd do.

He's done that too, now that you've thought about it. What an odd thing to think of, murder, when surrounded by quiet and flowers.

The garland in your hands is almost finished, a heavy mix and match of colors, almost unsightly in heavy blooms and thick stalks. It would fit nicely upon Webber, you eyeing it as you brush one particular large flower, some sort of carnation maybe? The child likes color, and always seemed so happy when given such simple things as flowers.

You wonder what they had been lacking before here, to be so gleeful from such a pitiful gift, and one from you no less.

Your thoughts wander, drift and darken, finished garland in hand, more flowers in your lap, before an audible huff from your side draws your attention back from staring into nothing, a light jab at your side from his elbow. 

He doesn't spare you a glance, but it's obvious enough he doesn't want you to be doing nothing. As if flower crafting was all that hard and that there needed to be two to work it all!

Alas, you have no excuse anyhow. What use are you besides something as simple as this?

You've been tired for too long to even want to make an attempt anymore. And, really, your contribution was a smattering compared to the others hauls.

You're not willing, anymore. They all know this, and you wonder why you are not cast out still.

Humanity and caring nature had nothing to do with it, as you've lost such things from them. Obligation, perhaps. 

You do not work, you do not partake. Perhaps that was why Wilson was out here, bugging you so thoroughly. A moral obligation, but at this point you are surprised he still has it in him.

You've lost yours, a long while back. Where has his gone then?

Right back to where it belongs, you supposed. He was no empty man, you know that for sure, and you recognize that with ease.

You wonder if he even realizes how hollow a man can get. Charlie had seen that, not quickly enough unfortunately, and she had paid a price for such a mistake.

Perhaps he was out here because he hasn't noticed as of yet. Or, even worse, he does know but thinks himself better, the bigger man in his actions.

No, you decide, that was rather selfish thinking, wasn't it? Something more on your lines than Wilsons, and he was much too differing for it.

You set aside the flower crown, to look at the rest of the blooms in your lap.

What are these, then? Flowers, plants, sleeping butterflies to never wake. You brush over something that might be a lily, and wonder if they dream.

Probably not. No matter who you are, who you've been, you'd never wish nightmares upon butterflies. You are not that corrupt, you'd like to believe.

Taking the blooms in hand, twining the stems, letting your thoughts ease for a moment as you carefully twisted and pulled the flowers together, you wonder.

Later, at another time, you'd hate yourself for it. But the crown on your head is more soothing than originally believed, a gift as well, and it helps clear the dark away for awhile, brush it all under a metaphorical rug, dust bunnies and biting mites to crawl out later, when all on your lonesome.

Yellow dandelions now, you blink at absentmindedly, curling with white and red and all the green, and you can almost remember something told to you in your childhood, of the little weed and its clocks.

But it escapes you, memory not useful enough of that past, and all you have now is what you have on hand.

And that is flowers and weeds. 

You pluck one of the dandelions up between thumb and forefinger, looking at it critically. Did Wilson not know the difference between flower and weed then, or was it on purpose?

More believable, actually, would be that he did not care. That mind of his knew any answer to any question he could have, of course he'd know the difference.

The merits of still held deals. Not every contract had to be broken, and many of the others still had theirs left over.

Not you, however. Your end of the bargain was never upheld, so you had never expected it to last. 

Taking the weeds and, after a moment of thought, the quiet of Wilson working beside you, his own pile of garlands much better made, as well as quicker, beside him, you let out a quiet breath and get back to work.

Not much left for you anyhow. 

The crown in your hands now is different, time spent more focused than the child's gift at your side, and you turn it carefully in your hands, the flowers on your own head heavy and soft and as real as ever.

After a moment, you turn to the man by your side, him not even paying an ounce of attention, so focused on his work, blackened claws clicking and clacking together, and you raise your arms and set the garland on his mess haired head.

He stills instantly, and you pull back, cross your arms and look away, out across the meadow, the quiet and calm now tense.

He doesn't speak, but for a brief moment you catch sight of him in the corner of your eye, raising his hand to brush the garlands dandelion additions, and you close your eyes, frowning.

That cold nausea is back, oozed out from under its rug, tar black and spiced, and you feel it slosh inside you, rotting away. Flowers can only do so much, especially for someone like you, and in the end the help they offer accomplishes nothing.

And then there is a brush, a touch, of talons on your shoulder and a light squeeze, before Wilson pulls his hand away and shifts himself. You feel his back press to your side, almost leaning on you, and when you open your eyes and look over he is back to his work, not even a glance to you.

But the warmth of him leaning against you, a steady contact, is enough for you to swallow back the bitter sting in your throat.

He doesn't offer a thanks, but you hadn't either. Perhaps for the best.

You return back to your flowers, now devoid of dandelion weeds, and carefully get back to work, solid touch pressed to your side constantly now, an anchoring point of sorts.

You hardly understand such things anymore, and you are so very tired, so exhausted. But the flowers in your hands and the body leaning comfortingly against you…

It was enough, for now. And it was better, in the end; no Throne or its promises could compare.

And you know that from personal experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, still don't know anymore


End file.
